Young patients speak out on hospital services

Results from the 2018 Children and Young People's Patient Experience Survey for Oxford University Hospitals were announced today, Tuesday 19 November 2019.

1,250 questionnaires were sent out to young patients and their carers locally and 401 patients from Oxford University Hospitals responded to the survey, which was a 33 percent response rate. The biggest response was from the 12-15 age group (149).

The Trust scored in the top 20 percent of trusts on 11 questions and the bottom 20 percent of trusts on four questions.

Some highlights from the report include:

• the average adult/carer score rating children and young people's care was 8.7 out of 10
• 96 percent of adults/carers felt that staff looking after their child were friendly
• 93 percent of adults/carers had confidence and trust in all the members of staff treating their child
• 92 percent of children and young people felt they were given enough privacy while they received care and treatment.

Areas for improvement include: changing admission dates, staff communicating with children in a way that they can understand, food, and noise at night.

There were two new questions on hospital WiFi provision added to this year's national questionnaire, as well as one on whether parents or carers (for the 0-7 age group) felt comfortable complaining if they were not happy about their child's care or treatment.

When asked 'Overall how good was your experience (0 = very poor, 10 = very good)', the majority of respondents (86 percent) chose 8, 9 or 10 in the 0-7 years and 94 percent chose 'very or quite well' in the overall 'how well you were looked after in hospital' in the 12-15 year old category.

In terms of additional comments submitted alongside the questionnaire, 97 percent of comments about staff were positive, but 87 percent of comments that people wrote about the hospital environment or facilities were negative (mostly about play equipment, food, and noise).

Sam Foster, Chief Nursing Officer, said: "We welcome patient feedback and this national survey is a good way of measuring ourselves against other hospitals and our own performance in previous years. We are committed to work together to continue to improve the experience of care for children and young people.

"We work all year round with a young patient group, YiPpEe, which focuses on improving children's and young people's experiences in our hospitals. We will be taking a report on the results of this survey to our Board and making recommendations about how best to use the useful feedback to improve our services, working with staff and YiPpEe."

Pictured: the giant Michael Craig-Martin artwork in Oxford Children's Hospital atrium